Travis Kalanick

Started from the ground, Travis Kalanick is now among the richest businessperson of the generation. He is an American Businessman, entrepreneur as well as a computer programmer mostly known for being the CEO of the company Uber in 2009, a huge ride-hailing firm which operated in more than 66 countries and more than 360 cities. Similarly, he co-founded two tech startups before Uber which include Red Swoosh, a peer-to-peer file-sharing company, and online file-exchange service Scour. Furthermore, he was listed as the 290th richest American by the Forbes Magazine in 2014.      

Early Life And Education Of Travis Kalanick                    

Travis Kalanick was born on August 6, 1976, to Bonnie Renée Horowitz Kalanick (née Bloom) (died in 2017) and Donald Edward Kalanick. Kalanick's mother used to work in retail advertising for the Los Angeles Daily News and his father was a civil engineer in the Los Angeles.       

He was raised in a suburb of Los Angeles. along with his two half-sisters, Allisyn Ashley Arm, who is an actress and a brother, Cory who is a firefighter.        

Kalanick studied computer engineering and business economics at the University of California, Los Angeles. He learned to code in the middle school. He dropped out of the UCLA to work on his file-sharing company.                

Travis Kalanick's Career  

While studying in University of California, Los Angeles, he was the member of Theta Xi fraternity and he started his first business an online file- exchange service called Scour.

Kalanick along with his cla s smates, Micheal Todd and Vince Busam dropped out of UCLA in 1998 to a s sist Dan Rodrigues found Scour Inc., an internet search engine, and file-sharing services which enables users to share music and movies online. Though his services became popular, the company was sued for copyright infringement by the motion pictures industries and recording industry. 

The company eventually filed for the bankruptcy in 2000 and later sold all the a s sets. Even after an unsuccess start, it did not stop Kalanick from pursuing his career in the filed and soon began a new company called Red Swoosh, another peer-to-peer file sharing company.

The company won a number of famous clients and he was able to sell the Red Swoosh in 2007 to Akamai Technologies for nearly $19 million.       

In 2009, Kalanick joined with Garrett Camp came up with the idea of Uber, a mobile app which connects pa s sengers with the drivers to hire them for the taxi services.   

Uber is operated in more than 360 cities and 66 countries worldwide. And in 2010, Kalanick succeeded Ryan Graves as CEO who held the position for ten months.

In December 2016 the news came that, Kalanick would be participating President Donald Trump's economic advisory council. The news sparked a reaction against Uber, mainly after Trump introduced a controversial immigration order and he stepped down from the council in February  2017.

On June 21, 2017, Kalanick resigned as CEO after Benchmark Capital. Despite his resignation, Kalanick will retain his seat on Uber's board of directors. 

As of 7 March 2018, he announced that he would start a venture, 10100. The fund is going to undertake large-scale employment opportunities by investing in e-commerce, innovation and real estate in developing markets like India and China.   

Travis Kalanick's Net Worth 

According to the Forbes, Travis Kalanick's net worth is estimated to be $4.8 billion. After a $9.3 billion deal with Japan’s Softbank, he is reportedly selling $1.4 billion worth of stocks in the ride-hailing company.    

Kalanick sold nearly one-third of his shares. 6.6% he holds in Uber which is as of now, worth about $3 million.    

Travis Kalanick's Personal Life 

Talking about his personal life he was in a relationship with Gabi Holzwarth (2014-2016), a violinist who interned at Shyp for almost 2 years. They both were introduced to one another by Uber investor, Shervin Pishevar.    

There was a rumor that he ended their relationship due to increased pressure at work.  And before this, he was in a relationship with his then-girlfriend Angie. They both bought a townhouse in the upper hills of the San Francisco's Castro section and was nicknamed Jam Pad.    

As of 2018, he is possibly single and living a lavish life in San Francisco, California, United States of America.

Controversy

Kalanick has been involved in numerous controversies in his career. In the past, he was caught on video arguing with a driver about fares for which he apologized later on. 

In February 2017, one of the former employees of Uber wrote a highly publicized blog post where she told about the company's failing attempt to address allegations of sexual hara s sment. 

After the company was highly criticized, Kalanick hired Eric Holder's law firm to lead an investigation into those charges and moreover, Uber was also claimed as overly aggressively workplace environment. 

“review and reallocate the responsibilities of Travis Kalanick.” 

Several days later Kalanick announced that he was taking a leave of absence. 

On August 10, 2017, Axios stated that Benchmark is suing Kalanick for fraud breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty. The suit was based on Uber's decision to grow the number of board seats. The lawsuit was very controversial due to relationship amongst the investor and the founder. The investment firm agreed to drop the lawsuit if Uber completed their transaction with Softbank. Later Uber agreed to sell a sizable stake to SoftBank.              

But, the court ruled in the favor of Kalanick to move the case to arbitration on August 30. In January 2018, Benchmark's dropped the lawsuit against Kalanick.      

Body Measurements

• Height- He stands at the height of 5 feet 8 inches (1.76 m) tall. 
• Weight- As of 2018, he weighs 71 kg.                

Check out his interview on The Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert.